Good looking device, clear and sensitive touchscreen
Bulky and heavy, limited features, limited compatibility with smartphones, not many apps, poor battery life
Smartwatches are making their move on the marketplace, but will they turn out to be game changers like the iPhone, or sideshows like 3D cinema? First up is the Samsung Galaxy Gear, which lets you take calls, send texts, control your phone's media playback and do a few other things without taking your handset out of your pocket.
Design
If you want to let everyone know you're one of the first to get one of those new-fangled smartphone on your wrist, the Gear is a good place to start. It's chunky and heavy, and fairly confidently screams "Hey, look at me; I'm different!". That said, while the design is distinctive, it's not garish and its industrial-looking brushed metal surround is bound to find some fans. But while it looks tough, it isn't particularly, since it's not splash proof, shock proof or dust resistant.
At the moment it's only designed to work with Samsung's Galaxy Note 3, though the Galaxy S4, S3, and Note 2 are due to be supported soon. Still, with no plans to make it compatible with other manufacturers' handsets, that's a bit of a limited market.
It's easy enough to set up -- touching the NFC-capable Note 3 to the back of the Gear's charging dock launches the Gear Manager software and sets up the automatic pairing process, which happens via Bluetooth.
Features and hardware
Press the power button on the side and the 1.6-inch touch screen will flash up time, date, temperature and a weather icon (it's supposed to do this when you look at it, but don't rely on it). The resolution of 320x320 pixels is more than sharp enough in this small space for viewing info, and even displaying the pics you can take via the 1.9-megapixel camera in the strap.
Tap on the weather icon again and you'll get a week's forecast for your area. Otherwise, you scroll your finger to the right to access the other functions, and scroll down to take you to the previous menu -- all straightforward enough.
You can also enable S Voice or a range of other features by double pressing the power key (unfortunately this will only do one task at a time, and you've got 15 to choose from). The S Voice function works reasonably well but don't expect miracles. You can call up contacts, check diary dates and dictate texts and so long as you keep it simple the voice recognition software will keep up with you. Say anything it doesn't quite get, however, and you'll find yourself in that curiously perplexing hell reserved for early adopter geeks where you find yourself continually repeating your past utterances only to hear "No matching applications found" again and again.
The 800MHz processor inside is backed by 512MB of RAM, which a year or so ago would have been an okay spec for a midrange smartphone. But while it's quick enough when scrolling through the menus, voice control seems to have a bit of a delay, which can be a bit off-putting.
Incoming calls and texts are flashed up on the Gear's screen as they come into the Note 3, together with contact details and a contact photograph if you have them. Taking the call feels a bit weird though, and you may find yourself shouting at your wrist as you try to compensate for the speaker, which doesn't cope too well with background noise -- not a good look.
There's a lot of potential for apps on the Gear -- Skype or WhatsApp in particular spring to mind, but they're not available yet. And there's no support for email either, which seems very much like a dropped ball in these days of constant connectedness.
Battery life is a long way short of what you'd expect from a standard watch -- instead of months you get a day or two (and that's if you switch it off when you're not using it).
Conclusion
The Galaxy Gear feels like too little, too soon, at too big a price, with too limited a spread of supported devices to use it with -- and it's essential you pair it with one. There's clearly a potential market for smart watches, but limited capability tied in to a very small number of smart phones doesn't seem like a great way to make the most of that potential. Watch this space, but it might be a good idea to hold off on buying your first smart watch for a little while yet.
Processor: 800MHz
Memory slot: No
Display: 1.63in Super AMOLED LCD, 262,000 colours, 320x320 pixels
Connectivity: Bluetooth v4.0
Ports: Charging dock
Camera: 1.9 megapixel, autofocus, BSI sensor
Sensors: Accelerometer, gyroscope
Video playback: MP4, H.264
Audio playback: AAC
Radio: No
Battery: 315mAh
Size: 37x57x11
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
